A Sweet Refrain Drifts in From the Past
by Selene The Moon Goddess
Summary: "My sheets smell like you, which is odd, since you haven't slept in them for some time." Tony muses on his and Steve's relationship, the importance of colors, and how life will stop at nothing to keep everything changing in his world.


_AN: Title taken from My Fathers Father by The Civil Wars. Which you should listen to for maximum sadness._

* * *

In all my life, in all of the fires I've started and all of the noise I've made, it would only make sense that I would love you softly, gently.

I love you best in the early hours of the morning, right when I wake up and everything is fuzzy and disoriented. I love you most when, in those quiet moments, I can feel your hand on my hip, your chest against my back, the weight of you beside me, the smell of you on my sheets.

We stare at each other in these moments, absorbed in the other. When I look back at this time, what I remember most is the pale blue of your eyes. How loving your gaze is on mine. I remember the soft yellow of your hair, and the muted white of sunlight. I remember how the sunlight made your skin and hair and eyes glow, I remember how the dust swirled around us and everything seemed far too much like a dream.

I love you best in those moments of nothing rather than the moments of passion, because they remind me that you're still here. That you haven't left. And I think in those moments of white, pale blue, and soft yellow, that maybe we're at our most beautiful.

I love you most in those moments because for just a second, you make me stupid. You make my thoughts swirl and cluster together. When you place your hand on the small of my back and kiss that spot behind my ear, all of the useless thoughts and worries bleed together. They are no longer important. You make me warm and content to let the world fall behind us.

For moments you make it hard to breathe. In stolen quiet moments between us, you make me believe in forever and always. It isn't until later, when cold and insomnia wraps their arms around me like old friends, that I remember forever doesn't exist.

* * *

You died on a Sunday, which considering, I guess fits. You died in my arms, on the battlefield. You died with all of those cliques. I'm sure that when you died, time stood still. I'm sure that when the seconds passed by they felt like lifetimes. I don't really know. I don't really remember. I don't want to remember the way you looked when life left your eyes. I don't want to remember what you said or what I said as we both knew what was coming. I don't want to remember. I do not want to remember.

I wish I didn't remember.

You died in fire and noise. And when I pressed my forehead against yours I couldn't help but think how, of course, that such a quiet soul would be able take the fires and noise with him. I always assumed you would take the quiet.

At the hospital they keep talking but I can't hear. They talk about diagnosis and cause of death. I try to listen, I do. But they're speaking on a higher frequency than I'm use to and nothing really makes sense.

It isn't until later that I realize that I don't care about how, I just want to understand why. We planned, in our own unique way, to grow old together. Even if old for us was only a couple more years. It seems the universe won't allow me to have anything lasting. I guess it took my childhood plea for change to heart.

* * *

I loved you. I love you. I loved you like a soft old record. I love you like an all-consuming fire. And though you took that fire with you, the war moves on, and the battles are plenty.

* * *

She finds me in the workshop again. The hours have slipped by and I can't remember the last time I've slept. "I'm working," I tell her, "I'm working for the war."

And maybe she believes me, though no, she's always been too smart for that. I look at her, and wish how I could give her the world. She deserves as much. I look at her and pray, dream, scream that maybe I could learn to love her like I use to. That maybe in her body and her heart I could take away the pain you left.

Sadly though, she is brilliant and beautiful, but nothing like you. And I know if I tried hard enough I could love her like that in some small way, but it wouldn't be fair to anyone.

She looks at me and gives up. Maybe it's because she's tired of fighting, pushing, pleading. Maybe it's the crazed determine look in my eye. Whatever the reason, she leaves and lets me work.

And for a while, you know, I had myself fooled. Funny how if you repeat a lie long enough, you start to believe it's true.

* * *

I think I would've liked being a father.

If you were still here, do you think we could have a kid? Adopt some little boy or girl, watch them grow up. Be parents.

I think that logically, with our jobs, we couldn't. But I still like to pretend. I like to imagine what it would feel like to take our kid to the park. To see his or her's excitement on Christmas morning. I wonder what it would feel like to look at the both of you and to know that's my family. My family.

Even the bad stuff wouldn't be so bad, if it was with you. I'm sure we'd fight, with each other and with our kid. And that would suck, but I also think that maybe the good times could make up for that.

I know I'd struggle. That I would try too hard to not be my father, or not try hard enough. I'm sure I'd be so much more nervous than you. I'm sure I'd tell you a hundred times that this isn't a good idea. I'll mess up. But hopefully you wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe me, right?

I would like to have a child. But only with you.

* * *

It happens, years later, when the war is marching on. And I'm still in my glass cage, working toward the end. When a tool slips from my hand to the floor. I hear no noise. I'm distracted because I can't remember the color of your eyes. I feel hot, and slow, and stupid, in the worst possible way.

This feeling, this cloud, it won't go away. And I realize the more I think the more I can't remember. So I beg her, "Please, take me to the hospital." I'm not sure what they can do for me. But I vaguely remember you believed that hospitals heal you when you're sick.

I haven't been sick for awhile, not since you left. Whenever I was sick you always felt much better if I went with you to the hospital. So maybe if I go now you'll feel better, maybe you'll be there for me to see. And I feel that if I go, perhaps I'll be able to remember the color of your eyes.

The doctors say more words of diagnosis. I listen only long enough to understand, but I don't care for details. All I know is I can't remember the color of your eyes and I probably never will.

On the car ride home, everything feels tense and silent and I can't help but think that if you were here you would hold my hand and I wouldn't feel so guilty.

I ask her what color your eyes are.

"Blue." She says. She doesn't look at me, can't look at me. Blue, I think.

Blue, yellow, white.

Blue, yellow, white.

Blue. Yellow. White.

These colors spin together in my head, mixing and colliding. Spilling from my brain down into my veins, wrapping around my bones and muscles. Until they reach my heart, and instead of red my heart pumps blue, yellow, and white blood.

* * *

When I was young I remember waking from nightmares, screaming for my father. Always on those nights it wasn't until my current Nanny would hold me close and say, "He isn't here Tony, your father is not here" that the world would solidify around me.

It happens once, only once. When I think about it later, it surprises me, considering my track record with nightmares. Or maybe I just can't remember another time.

I can't tell you the dream, even if my memory wasn't fading quicker than most I wouldn't be able to recall it. It was awful though. I know ice and freezing water was in it. Nothing was warm. Nothing was light. Nothing was you.

I remember waking, I remember shaking and calling out a name I no longer know. I remember gripping the sheets next to me with shaking hands and only feeling cold emptiness in its place.

I remember her rushing into my room, desperately trying to stop my body from shaking, from me hurting myself. I remember her holding me close and whispering, "He isn't here Tony, he is not here."

And instead of the world taking form, I remember everything slipping. Dripping through my fingers like that ice water.

It's awful to think that this is the clearest memory I have connected to you.

I guess I got my wish.

* * *

Over the months I find myself staring at pale blues, soft yellows, and muted whites. Yet, I can't really fathom why.

* * *

I've decided that I'm a horrible person.

I don't answer phone calls, I forget what day it is, and I make people worry. I hold on tight to the people in my life and make them watch as I deteriorate.

There's a hole in my chest where my heart is suppose to be. I'm not sure where it is. I know I didn't drop it on the street, and it wasn't stolen by anyone I can remember.

I think maybe, that I never had one. But that doesn't feel quite right either. I think someone has it, a feeling in my gut tells me they do. Someone with light came and took it away.

But maybe this is wishful thinking, the idea of not being born with a heart is too horrible. Someone stealing it sounds much better to the ears.

Dear God, I hope someone has it.

* * *

I'm standing at the entrance to my workshop, the door sealed off for my own protection. She's standing next to me, staring at my reflection on the glass. But I'm not looking at her or me, I'm thinking of whites, blues, yellows, and a ghost hand on my hip for reasons I can't remember.

I glance at her and say, "It was never about the war, was it?" She's still staring at me. I can feel it through the reflection. I can see the tears gathered in her eyes, can feel the pity and worry rolling off her in waves. It doesn't matter; none of it matters, because I can't remember what matters.

"No, it wasn't."

* * *

Where are you? Our bed is cold and the rooms feel empty. There are other people yes, sometimes people I can't remember, but without you it feels empty, everything feels empty.

I'm talking into the empty space beside my pillow, speaking to an idea, a feeling. But you were important once, right?

Where have you gone? Where are you hiding?

* * *

I die on a Thursday, which doesn't make any sense. I don't die in your arms or on the battlefield, I don't leave with the fire and noise I brought. I couldn't - you took it all.

No, I die in that quiet moment when you just wake up, and I feel this is fitting for some reason. I pray, just one last time, that I'll be able to remember why.

They find me in our bed surrounded by muted white, pale blue, and soft yellow. They find me with a small smile on my lips, because for one last time, I remember the significance of those three colors.

And the doctors tell more diagnosis, more causes of death. They tell people with heartbeats and air in their lungs, they tell people who listen. But we ignore them, we don't listen, for we are too far gone in quiet, breathless moments to care.

* * *

I love you softly and boldly. I love you in fires and quiet seconds. I love you in times of war, peace, and creation. I loved you constantly, even when the world decided I should know nothing but change. I loved you through death, and shaky nights. Through battles, and victories, and defeats. I loved you even when I could not remember why.

And I suppose, in that war, I won.


End file.
